Safe Speed Forums

Hi! I've had a notice if impending prosecution for a red light offence it appears I went through one in Streatham, the Police say the allegation can be supported by technical & photo evidence. What should I do now? I havn't fillied out the form yet to declare who was driving (me) any suggestions as to my (first) action? cheers, Keano.

After sending in a "PACE" statement with my MIP I have now been sent a Conditional Offer Of Fixed Penalty (second chance) I assume from this that the police have no real evidence or they would have sent me court proceedings??? should I repeat the "PACE" statement???

They are offering you the chance to pay a FPN instead of going to court. If you wish to go to court to defend it, then don't pay the FPN.

If I were you, I would pay the FPN, because from what you've previously posted, you have no defence. The police will have evidence recovered from the camera that you went past when it turned red.

I would agree with Winston. You could try asking your question on PePiPoo, they are busy so you may not get a reply.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Before I did that I would be checking at least the following:

1. NIP served in time.
2. Location and date on NIP correct.
3. Conditional Offer states that proceeding will be halted for 28 days (if it doesn't say that, they can never be restarted).
4. Amber time of lights is 3 seconds.
5. If the stop line is offset from the lights by any distance, that the line is continuous, unbroken, and the correct width. (If it is level with or close to the lights this probably won't help, but some lines are offset a lot.)

It's funny how no one has yet asked the question of 'did you do it'.
If you did, pay up like a man and pay attention next time and just be thankful you didn't hit anyone.
If you didn't, which I doubt as the tone of your post is in the 'help me slime out of it' manner, then fight them to the death Never surrender.

Ah but if he just pays up then the partnership will get the money and nobody wants that!
(It works the same for red light cameras, yeah?)

Red light cameras are 'better' than speed cameras because there is a higher likelyhood that people triggering them actually are being unsafe, but there are still occasions when they too are wrong, for example the guy who got done for letting an ambulance through and lorries who are allowed to drive through on amber but if it turns red they must stop before their trailer goes through?!

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Andrew.

In other ways they are as bad or worse than speed cameras.

They change drivers priorities, more attention will be focussed on the lights which may mean something else is missed.

They are mistaken for speed cameras, or drivers think they also record speed. Which again changes behaviour, not always positively.

I would expect the main reson for not passing a red light would be self preservation. The main cause of passing a red light would (I imagine) be simply not seeing it or being confused by other lights in the vicinity 9genuine mistakes). In these cases I don't see a camera making any difference (just money).

Finally, is there any evidence they work?

Well if you read DSCP's minutes you'll see that they were having terrible problems with them tripping fuses and needing servicing... They have given up with them now!

But as you say, there are more reasons why they are bad than good. And if you know which lanes thy don't monitor you can go through the red lights anyway in some places.

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Andrew.

Sorry to be asking a dumb-sounding question, but why do you not want that?

Around here we tend to believe that the camera partnerships are making a business out of needlessly enforcing the speed limit to a technical degree with no regard for the effect on overall road safety.

In order to support their activitives they give out misleading and distorted road safety information which tends to undermine our valuable road safety culture. In short they are persecuting us and killing us.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

"What he said."

I personally think of the partnerships as being evil.
They pretend to be about road safety but cause more problems than they solve. Panic braking is not a good thing.

Oh and some of them buy their speed registration devices from weapons manufacturers. Speeding files = guns... I don't intend to pay for guns. Guns are not 'safe'.

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Andrew.

OK! thanks to all who replied, it looks like i'm going to pay the conditional offer of fixed penalty. I did it (unintentionally) so it looks like I gotta pay the price, thanks guys. Keano.